Skip to main content

what do these prefixes for jhāna mean? Jhāyanti pajjhāyanti nijjhāyanti apajjhāyanti

 what do these prefixes for jhāna mean?

pa-j-jhāyanti ni-j-jhāyanti a-paj-jhāyanti (a few suttas have ava-jhāyanti instead of 'a-paj')


'pa' often seems to be an amplifier or intensifier.

many of the suttas with ni-j-jhāna treat it like a first jhana with too much thinking reflecting on a view (ditthi).

What does 'ni' prefix mean in general, and what do you think it means here?


For a-paj-jhāyanti, (mis-meditate) B. Bodhi treats it as almost opposite of  paj-jhāyanti (pre-meditate).


Thanissaro treats all 4 types as various flavors of absorbing.

Sujato treats the last two types as 'thinking' type of absorptions (I believe he translates  paj-jhāyanti  and ava-jhayanti the same)


B. Bodhi footnote in MN 108

525 Jhāyanti pajjhāyanti nijjhāyanti apajjhāyanti. Though the verbs individually do not have an established pejorative sense, the string is obviously intended as a denigration. At MN 108.26 the four verbs are used to describe the meditation of one whose mind is obsessed by the five hindrances.


Here, brahmin, someone abides with his mind obsessed by sensual lust, a prey to sensual lust, and he does not understand as it actually is the escape from arisen sensual lust. While he harbours sensual lust within, he meditates, premeditates, out-meditates and mis-meditates.


thanissaro:

“It wasn’t the case, brahman, that the Blessed One praised mental absorption of every sort, nor did he criticize mental absorption of every sort. And what sort of mental absorption did he not praise? There is the case where a certain person dwells with his awareness overcome by sensual passion, seized with sensual passion. He does not discern the escape, as it has come to be, from sensual passion once it has arisen. Making that sensual passion the focal point, he absorbs himself with it, besorbs, resorbs, & supersorbs himself with it.


sujato:

Harboring sensual desire within they meditate and concentrate and contemplate and ruminate. so kāmarāgaṁyeva antaraṁ karitvā jhāyati pajjhāyati nijjhāyati apajjhāyati. 


Forum discussion


https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?p=648223#p648223


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Advice to younger meditators on jhāna, sex, porn, masturbation

Someone asked: Is porn considered harmful sexual.activity? I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner and I don't wish to engage in casual sex so I use porn to quench the biological urge to orgasm. I can't see that's it's harmful because nobody is being forced into it. The actors are all paid well and claim to enjoy it etc. The only harm I can see is that it's so accessible these days on smart devices and so children may access it but I believe that this is the parents responsibility to not allow unsupervised use of devices etc. Views? Frankk response: In another thread, you asked about pleasant sensations and jhāna.  I'm guessing you're young, so here's some important advice you won't get from suttas   if you're serious about jhāna.  (since monastics are already celibate by rule)   If you want to attain stable and higher jhānas,   celibacy and noble silence to the best of your ability are the feedstock and prerequiste to tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

SN 48.40 Ven. Thanissaro comments on Ven. Sunyo's analysis

This was Ven. Sunyo's analysis of SN 48.40: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2024/05/exciting-news-honest-ebt-scholars-like.html And here is Ven. Thanissaro's response to that analysis: I think there’s a better way to tackle the issue of SN 48:40 than by appealing to the oldest layers of commentarial literature. That way is to point out that SN 48:40, as we have it, doesn’t pass the test in DN 16 for determining what’s genuine Dhamma and what’s not. There the standard is, not the authority of the person who’s claiming to report the Buddha’s teachings, but whether the teachings he’s reporting are actually in accordance with the principles of the Dhamma that you know. So the simple fact that those who have passed the Buddha’s teachings down to us say that a particular passage is what the Buddha actually taught is not sufficient grounds for accepting it. In the case of the jhānas—the point at issue here— we have to take as our guide the standard formula for the jhānas, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

1min. video: Dalai Lama kissing boy and asking him to suck his tongue

To give more context, this is a public event,  * everyone knows cameras are rolling  *  it's a room full of children * the boy's mom is standing off camera a few feet away watching all of this * the boy initiated contact, he had already had a hug with Dalai Lama earlier and then asked Dalai Lama for another hug which triggered this segment  17 min. video showing what happened before that 1 min. clip and after, with some explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0qey5Ts78 16min talk from Ajahn Acalo with his thoughts on Dalai Lama kissing boy, relevance to Bhikkhu monastic code, sexual predators in religion in general, and how celibate monastics deal with sexual energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2m0TcUib0 The child's comments about the incident in a filmed interview later https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/18/643eba5d46163ffc078b457c.html The child: It's a great experience It was amazing to meet His Holiness and I think it's a great ex...
Post a Comment
Read more